Breakthroughs Today

There is no telling the psychological damage (trauma) pedophiliacs can bring into their victims. This sickness of the mind, and obviously of the soul, needs special attention to protect others from the evil it brings. Parents too must be more vigilant in guarding their children from these predators of innocence. SOMETIME in March, Agence France-Presse reported that the European Police (Europol) succeeded in cracking down a network of online pedophiles with almost 70,000 members worldwide, and 230 children were rescued. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation identified children victims to be at most 17 years old. Females were the most commonly abused, wrote HN Snyder in his report to the US Department of Justice. The more difficult thing is pedophiles cannot be identified from normal individuals. He can be anyone, anywhere. Clinically, pedophilia is a psychiatric condition wherein an individual impulsively fantasizes about, is sexually aroused by, or experiences sexual urg

While the outlawing of plastics ignores more the need to take consumers to their responsibility in cluttering un-recycled plastic in the environment, certain cities nevertheless legislates a local ban in its use. It will be interesting to know how it will fare with business establishments who will have to resort to the more expensive paper bags or simply ignore these LGU ordinances. MUNTINLUPA The Business Permit and Licensing Office closed a Kentucky Friend Chicken outlet in South Station, Alabang on 22 July 2010. [ Read report ]

Birthmarks are one those physical signs that make people distrinctly identifiable from others. While this makes the law enforcement job much easier, having marked at birth can pose a dangerous health risk. FOLK beliefs consider people with birthmarks as touched by an angel. In Italy they are called voglie, in Spain antohos and in Arabia wiham, which all translate to the same meaning: “wishes.” Folklore from these places has it that the marks arise from unsatisfied wishes of the mother during pregnancy. And this may partly explain why even today some Filipinos believe that any wish that a pregnant mother has must be met—even if it requires the husband to climb a 20-feet tall coconut tree to get a fruit that may already be rejected once the woman has it in her hands. “True” birthmarks, however, are vascular anomalies... [ Read more .] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 20 July 2011.

We talked last week of how oat needs to be understood well by knowing its potential side effect--celiac disease. Here's another example on why we should be normally cautious even when dealing with familiar natural foods. SOMETIMES it is more helpful to know how things can go wrong. It covers your downside. In health, downsides can be as worse as terminal illness or even death. You learned of the silent threat waged by the avenin in oatmeal. This week you will know that avenin is not that bad in comparison to another naturally occurring protein in foodstuff. That protein is gliadin. And it is found in wheat. Yes, wheat, that very same cereal you find in wheat bread, wheat flour, and even certain cereals consumed by kids. Like avenin, gliadin is a gluten protein. But it is at least 40- to 400-fold more immunogenic in triggering the appearance of celiac disease in predisposed persons. According to the Celiac Sprue Association, USA, celiac is an autoimmune disorder of the small i

I love oatmeal. I love the plenty of soluble fibers I can get in a serving of it. But, had I been vulnerable genetically to its side effect, a life-long and incurable disease, I would have had it without even knowing why, of course, until today. CERTAIN stories are fascinating, particularly those that tell how to keep your health through old age, or perhaps bring it back when lost. But this fascination turns into a deadly error when the story told was far from complete. You know what good it can do to your health; what you did not know was how it would poison your body. This is the inherent pitfall in natural medicine where treatment does not pass through rigid clinical trials to validate effectiveness, and more importantly ascertain the absence of toxicity. Even pharmaceutical-grade drugs have stories of getting pulled off the shelves as later studies reveal they cause other diseases. A classic case is oatmeal. Oat, like any cereal, contains beta-glucan in their cell wall (bran). B